To differing degrees, and to different people, each of these represents some ideal, or some evil. Some names evoke disgust and offence; others are looked up to despite grave abuse of power, gross lack of integrity. Each brought harm to their families and to others. Each of these violated basic moral codes and showed significant character flaws and offenses, to put it mildly.

Can you put them on a continuum? Can you draw a line where those too evil to honor are on one side and those whose evil was forgivable and not worth remembering against them?

What about the statues and monuments that were built to honor them or their causes? What about the Arc d’Triomphe which glorifies Napoleon? He ushered in the French Revolution and codified some great legislation, stamped out some poverty and class-based crime, yet led an attempt to conquer the world not much different than other megalomaniacs, and directly and indirectly caused the deaths of 1.7+ million people in Europe, some due to war, some due to political executions. Do we honor him?

What about the Roman Colosseum? It was the Circus Ring where the deaths of humans were used as entertainment as they were torn to pieces by lions and used as human torches. Should we tear it down?

What about the statues of Saddam Hussein and Stalin? Were we right to tear them down, and to rename Stalingrad, turning it back to St. Petersburg?

Were we right to tear Hitler’s summer home to the ground so it wouldn’t become a monument for remaining Nazi sympathizers to create a martyr out of Hitler?

What about Margaret Sanger and her philosophies of eugenics and ethnic cleansing of the poorest areas of town? Today Planned Parenthood is her legacy. Do we celebrate the good it does in providing medical care to poor women or do we mourn the millions and millions of babies it is responsible for killing, with an enduring disproportion of those babies being dark-skinned. This has been called a “Black Genocide.” Do we consider that when we decide federal funding?

What about Presidents Clinton, Kennedy, and others whom we still hold up as cultural icons? Kennedy is said to have begun “an Olympian sexual career at the age of seventeen in a Harlem whorehouse.”* His lifelong sexual exploits were renowned and regardless of his marital status or that of his “conquest.” Do we look beyond his handsome face and Camelot legend? Does character matter? Or only when it’s someone from another party? Now that we know all the sordid details, do we remove coins with their images from circulation? Do we shut down their presidential libraries? [*Presidential Passions by Michael John Sullivan]

Kennedy got us into the Vietnam War and lied for years to the American people to hide it. And yet we honor him. Homely President Nixon got us out, and yet his lying brought impeachment and shame. Yet both were reprehensible.

Let’s go back a bit. Let’s look at Thomas Jefferson and his illegitimate children born to slaves which he kept. Let’s look at others of our nation’s founding fathers and their own possession of slaves: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, others. One hundred years later, Robert E. Lee was also a slave holder yet even his enemies considered him a good man and a man of integrity. Do we expunge them from our history books? Do we take down the images which make us remember them?

I’ve been to the Colosseum, to the top of the Arc d’Triomphe, to the Deep South and seen statues of Robert E. Lee and Confederate flags still flying. I’ve seen concentrations camps, walked the hall in Dachau’s extermination rooms with their ovens. I’ve wept in graveyards of the fallen from wars where megalomaniacs tried to take over the world and seen great monuments that acknowledged the horror. Can we make the Confederate flag remembered but as a mark of shame?

Which monuments do we take down and risk forgetting the lessons they teach? Does erasing the memory of them also erase the opportunity to learn how far we’ve come? How far we have to go? Does taking down all monuments that are associated with evil just make us feel good about ourselves like children covering their eyes? Or would it be better to re-classify some of those statues as reminders of our own shameful past and a call to change and to continue to fight for the good? Should we not have museums of the Holocaust, of slavery and the horrors fought in the battle Civil Rights, of Stalin’s reign of terror, of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center, of atrocities like those of the KKK and Oklahoma City, of Islam’s attempt to conquer by the sword and of the Inquisition? Can we turn them into “Sites of Conscience” and places that are redefined to address and remember the tragedies?

The line is fuzzy. People are complicated. History is blurred and on a continuum. It’s easy to honor the wicked and be harsh with good men and women because they fell short of the goodness they sought. “There is so much good in the worst of us and so much bad in the best of us…” We are all fallen. Not one of us is perfect. We all live in glass houses. All of us. So what happens if we start throwing stones? How do we stand bravely against evil, stand boldly for justice, and still have grace? Where do justice and mercy kiss besides at the cross?

I have a lot of questions. I pray for answers. I pray for wisdom. I know only one answer: love God deeply and love our neighbors well. All of them.

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Eric Liddell – the unlikely runner whose slice of Olympic glory and moral struggle was portrayed in the well-known movie “Chariots of Fire” – was so much more than “just a one-time Olympic medalist.”

The movie gives glimpses of the real love of his life and the impact of that priority on the whole of his life before and after the 1924 Paris Olympics. For the Glory: Eric Liddell’s Journey from Olympic Medalist to Modern Martyr by Duncan Hamilton shines a spotlight on “the rest of the story.”

“For the Glory” is an excellent and unflagging telling of Eric Liddell’s life and gets it right, with one caveat: his dedication wasn’t to his church or missionary society, as Hamilton so often refers to it, but to Jesus Christ, and to the Gospel (which means “good news) of Jesus’ life and teachings. The church and missionary society was merely the structure by which his service was rendered possible and useful, and a tangible symbol of his higher devotion. Sometimes symbols are mistaken for the reality they represent.

Other than that parenthetical concern, I loved this biography. I re-read (listening to it read on audio, I kept pressing “replay”) – not because my mind had wandered but because I wanted to hear the words again and again – and sometimes pulled over in the car to write them down before I could move on (literally and emotionally!) When I finished the book I replayed the last two chapters at least twice. The only other time I have been so moved and enraptured with such inspirational eloquence was during certain pivotal passages in Pilgrim’s Progress.

I recommended it to my son-in-law for his commute to work and he loved it as much as I did, and will look for it in a format for his four young sons. Liddell’s life was a model of the kind of servant leadership, the epitome of “a good man,” that he wants his sons to admire and strive to emulate. In spite of [because of?] the lack of 21st-century psychological and self-elevating (narcissistic?) political correctness, Eric Liddell was a 20th-century classic hero, conscientiously striving to model his life of service after that of Jesus – the ultimate of self-sacrificial servant-hearted manhood.“Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

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I recently coordinated the development of a Bible study on some of the overlooked women in Scripture. It turns out someone has counted them – just the ones whose names we are given – and there are 181 of them! Such a shock! How many can we name off the top of our heads? 20? 30? 40? Eliminating Mary, Martha, Hannah, Eve, and other commonly studied women, I divided the women into groups depending on general context. I made a small group of women who were pivotal and critical in the life of the church – women such as those listed in the last chapter of Romans. There was a group of women who were known for how they used their gifts, like Lydia and Dorcas. Women who were mistreated and women who stood up against injustice, and women who were known by whose mother they were and their impact on generations. Each of the groups was taught by a separate woman from our local church, speaking for 30-40 minutes morning and evening, and writing 5 days’ of homework. I set aside for myself just two ladies – a pair in the book of Philippians – named Euodia and Syntyche. Mentioned only once, their story was the one I most needed to study and remember for my own life, and I am one beggar telling the other beggars where to find the bread. If you like, you can turn to Philippians 4:2-3 with me and let’s look at this little reference with the huge context, but I’m going to print it out here like an amplified version: I’m interjecting alternative translations from all the other versions, so you can get the full impact of what is said. “I plead with [urge; entreat; beseech; exhort; beg of] Euodia and Syntyche to agree [to live in harmony; to be of the same mind; to settle their disagreement; to have the same attitude] in the Lord. Yes, I ask you also, [Syzygus] my true companion [yokefellow, partner] help these women, who have labored [worked hard, shared my struggle, struggled] side by side with me in the gospel.” This is a letter to the young church of Philippi established in a Roman colony by Paul and Timothy on the second missionary journey. Remember Lydia in Week Two? The seller of purple cloth? She was the first convert in all of Europe! And a new little church was born here in Philippi. Fast forward a few years. Paul is writing a letter of encouragement to them. And he includes this reproof! By this time Euodia and Syntyche were important women in this church. But they’re bickering! We don’t know what Euodia and Syntyche’s beef was about, but we know it was petty, we know it was bad, and it wasn’t getting better. It was bad enough that Paul said here publicly “I BEG you, ladies, I beg BOTH of you: KNOCK IT OFF! NOW! And Syzygus, dear yokefellow, please be a dear friend and help them out! Make sure they reconcile and start living in unity!” This is in a letter meant for public distribution, addressed “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.” This makes all the believers accountable for Euodia and Syntyche’s reconciliation! It was THAT important. To bring this home, imagine if two of our College Ministry leaders got into a tiff, maybe a disagreement on how things should be done, or on a crabby day one offended the other, and were emotionally dueling whenever they had a chance to get in a snide comment, a subtle jab, or a sarcastic joke about the other. How would that affect College Ministry? It is important to remember that these verses have to be examined in the larger context of the epistle. It’s a pretty short, parental, intimate letter, not a formal one. Paul is pouring out encouragement for these young believers; He speaks repeatedly of GROWING in faith, and of having a proper spiritual perspective so they CAN grow. He encourages the believers there to see themselves more and more not primarily citizens of the Roman colony but citizens of a Heavenly colony where believers are bound together in unity and love. The bottom-line of Paul’s letter here is humility, servanthood, and unity out of love for God and for each other, as demonstrated by Christ Himself. In fact it is interesting to note that this is one of the few epistles where Paul doesn’t introduce himself as an apostle of Christ’s but only as a SERVANT. In fact – he speaks of himself and Timothy as Bondservants/SLAVES!) but calls the young believers SAINTS. So in the Sweet Spot of the letter, Paul reminds them of the example Jesus set. He put aside His own glory and His “rights” and put on a Servant’s robe. Let’s read it, Philippians 2:1-8: “So if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition (rivalry) or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better (more significant) than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.” (the most degrading and cursed form of death to a Jew.) Eternal Perspective:This then is the eternal perspective Paul gives us to look at the spat between Euodia and Syntyche, and then at the conflict in our own lives, the daily offences, hurt feelings, rude people, the ones sometimes kindly called “sensitive” but whom C.S. Lewis calls “domestic tyrants.” Dale and I liked to visit old cemeteries when we travelled. We were always planning our funerals and gravestones, and trying to glean wisdom from those who had gone the distance. We were in Scotland, and in the cemeteries on the west side, Glasgow area, the stones pretty much had only names and dates, but OH, on the EAST side, near Edinburgh – sites of great Reformation passion and martyrdom – the stones were wonderful! Filled with wisdom and proclamations of faith! One of our very favorite said this: “ONE EYE ON HEAVEN, AND ONE EYE ON THE GRAVE, BECOMES A MAN BOTH MORTAL AND IMMORTAL” That, my dear sisters, is an eternal perspective! We and the people we interact with are mortal – we have wounds and fears and insecurities and bad days; and we are also IMmortal, and have eternal value, cherished by God. If we treat each other as having eternal value to God, and as having heavy burdens we cannot see, we will be kinder. And when we see the results of our own mortality – see how our pain and sin and failure and fear result in OTHER people needing to forgive us – AND we remember our own immortal worth, how much God has forgiven us – taking the log out of our own eye – then the resulting humility will bring out compassion, mercy, and grace in us, making us kinder, able to forgive more quickly, able to pity pain’s consequences in our sisters, and it will make us able to offer to share their pain, to “bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2Forgive and Forget: That leads me to my second point for today: In addition to an eternal perspective we need a better understanding of Forgiveness. We need to learn to get it and give it. I have observed both in my own heart, and in the stories of those who have confided in me or raged at me, that one of the foundational reasons it is so hard to forgive others is because it seems like a breach of justice. You will look at that more in your homework, because I wanted it as part of the written study, but I want to expand upon it here a bit. It’s a huge subject, one that could be a whole week’s study in itself! And it’s clearly one Syzygus had to have discussed with Euodia and Syntyche in helping them reconcile! We are created in the image of God, and in ourselves we have some of the wonderful characteristics of God, but they are broken, bent, imperfect versions. One of these is JUSTICE. God is perfectly JUST! It is His perfect justice which demanded that our sin be paid for and not just overlooked. It is the reason His only son, Jesus, who had no sin of His own to die for, suffered and died for us! God could NOT have just overlooked our sin, or said “That’s okay.” He couldn’t have done that and remained just. He could have left us to die, and remained perfectly just, but He is also a God of MERCY, so Jesus willingly lay down His life for us to bridge that gap. Now when we are the offended ones, we want justice! But when we are the offenders, we want mercy! In Jesus we have both. But it’s this desire for justice that makes it so hard to forgive someone when they have hurt us, especially when it seems intentional, repeated, or done for selfish reasons, not caring about its effect on us. I’m not talking today about true unavoidable accidents – Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you! Are you okay? But I’m dealing today with offense! With sin and its effects. I think there is one misconception we have that makes forgiveness even harder. It feels like to forgive someone is to say “What you did is actually okay.” When it’s NOT OKAY! It’s important to remember that TO FORGIVE IS TO ACCUSE. You don’t forgive someone treating you for lunch or paying you a complement. In Scripture, forgiveness is always related to SIN. Let’s look at just a few of the many Scriptures about this: Ex 34:7: “The Lord…forgiving INIQUITY & TRANSGRESSION & SIN.” Ps 25:18: “Oh Lord, forgive all my SINS” Ps 103:3: “The Lord forgives all your INIQUITY” Jer 31:34: “I will forgive their INIQUITY” Luke 7:49: “Who is this who even forgives SIN?” Heb. 9:22: “In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of SINS” 1 Jn 1:19: “If we confess our SINS, He is faithful and just to forgive us our SINS, and to cleanse us from all UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.” Nowhere in Scripture is sin minimized by euphemisms like “missing the mark” or “making poor choices.” But what whitewashing sin results in is not being able to forgive others and not feeling forgiven, by God or man. What a mess our concept of forgiveness is! To simplify the seeing, let’s look at children. We – as Christian adults – often command our children to lie, telling them to say “I’m sorry” when they aren’t. They know Johnny deserved what he got because he knocked down mine on purpose just to be mean! But the child either lies that he’s sorry or gets in trouble, so he lies. He might spit out “SORRY!” or hiss “Sorrrreee!”. Then we order the other child to say “It’s okay.” But everyone involved knows it’s NOT okay! It was wrong! Neither party feels good about any of it. And we carry over this harmful language, this watered down hypocrisy of inadequate repentance into adulthood. So it’s no wonder we as adults have a hard time forgiving! And we even whitewash our sin to God, because the core sins, the right names for what we’ve done, are too hard to look at and admit, so we softpedal what we’ve done and then only feel partially forgiven. So we had to invent the phrase “forgive ourselves” when what we really need is confidence that we have truly repented for the whole exposed nasty mess, nothing hidden or whitewashed, and that God has seen it all and truly forgiven it ALL! We don’t understand the dynamics of sin, repentance, and forgiveness! And Oh! how harmful the results are! So if I may, I’d like to suggest we begin to use more Biblical albeit politically incorrect! language – with God, with each other, and with our children. Let’s help our children – with our instruction and example – to name their sin, to understand WHY it was wrong, and to realize that it’s still wrong no matter how justified or good it felt. Let’s model and teach, saying “I was mean to call you DoodooHead.” And then teach them to ask the victim to “Please forgive me.” “It was wrong for me to hit you. Please forgive me. Are you okay?” Or “I was wrong to knock down your tower. I shouldn’t have done that. Will you forgive me?” And then instead of “It’s okay” let’s encourage – but not order – the other to say “I forgive you.” We will teach that by modeling it. It’s easier when the child has been asked directly for forgiveness. We and they need to recognize that forgiveness can be given regardless of FEELINGS, and we can help the child learn that forgiveness is a CHOICE, an act of the will. A decision. A legal contract if you will. Feelings will come and go, before and after the pronouncement of forgiveness, but the will to forgive is an unmerited decision. Grasping these concepts will be a gift to them – to have an accurate and Biblical view of sin, repentance, and forgiveness will help them all their life. We can then help them learn what that forgiveness looks like lived out. And what DOES forgiveness look like? Are we really required to “forgive and forget?” How do we forget when we hurt so much? especially if the pain was intentional, or selfishly inflicted? Does God forgive and forget? How can GOD forget??? Doesn’t He know everything??? I am NOT a theologian. I have, however, read and read on this, and there are lots of opinions. I have spent many years struggling to learn how to forgive when the other person doesn’t repent, how to resolve conflict, what the Scriptures say about how to ward off bitter roots which “defile many.” I also spent years struggling to grasp God’s forgiveness of me. This whole week’s study is a taste of what I have learned. So – Does God forgive and forget? Let’s look at the Scriptures most quoted about this: Isaiah 43:25: “I am He who blots outyour transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” Hebrews 8:12- “I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.” Isaiah 38:17- “in love You have delivered my life from the pit of destruction for You have cast all my sins behind Your back.” Psalm 103:8-12 – “The Lord … does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities … as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us.” Do you notice the willfulness in the wording of God regarding “forgetting” our sin. He doesn’t ever say He won’t be able to remember them. But He says “I WILL NOT remember them.” One translation puts it that “I will no longer hold their sins against them.” And another: “I will not call to mind your sins anymore.” Our sins will no longer be in God’s ledger as open debts. They are cancelled and will be remembered against us NEVERMORE. In Christ’s death on the cross, our sins were wiped clean, our debt forgiven, and atonement made complete. God hasn’t forgotten why His Son was put to death! But because He was, our debt is now marked “PAID IN FULL.” In Romans 8:1 Paul explains, “There is now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus.” God has chosen to leave forgiven sins in the past, to not hold them against us ever again, but consider them like sealed legal records. He paid for them, then cast them behind His back. This is Divine will, not divine amnesia. It’s painful to forgive. It was painful for Jesus. It’s painful for us. Especially again. And again. And yet isn’t this exactly what God does for us every day? Don’t we tend to fall into the same old pit every time we fall? Don’t we each have our particular area of weakness, our own “pet sin” that we don’t really want to relinquish? Don’t we each tend to walk away from certain sins but leave a forwarding address? Don’t we all have what the puritans called “a traitor within” who causes us to say with Paul “That which I know to do, I don’t! And that which I don’t want to do, I DO.” And every time – every time – 70 times 7 (in other words “To infinity, and Beyond!”) God forgives us again. He never tells us it’s okay to do what we did, but He does say He forgives us and puts it in the past, covered with the blood of His precious Son. And in the same way, it’s painful for us to forgive others, because we set them free, but then still carry the pain and memory of the person’s sin against us. Forgiveness means we willingly lay down our rights to hold it against the sinner, or complain, or hold onto it and get bitter. We can, however, take their sins, remembering God’s forgiveness of us, and lay their sins at the foot of the cross, and trust Jesus to make things right in the end. This is an act of faith in the goodness, grace, justice, power and love of God to forgive us, and to deal with our enemies. In fact, with every difficult person or conflict we are forced to make a choice.. We have basically 3 choices! We can sin right back at them! (And we know they deserve it!) Or we can purse our lips and become bitter. Or we can become conduits – we can choose to let God’s grace flow through us to them, and can take their offenses and carry them to Jesus, Who nailed them to the cross. “Let it go! Let it go!” 😉 I have three little exercises that help me when I am struggling to forgive someone. You will look at the first two in more depth in your homework. One is to pray FOR the other person. The second is to do seek out acts of kindness you can do for that person. The third is simple, but oh so hard. It’s just this: Take a good look at the log in your eye. Make a list on paper of your own sins. Take a hard look at your intentional and unintentional sin. Then take a huge marker and write “PAID IN FULL” across it all. Spend time thanking the Lord for all He has forgiven. Tear up the list, or burn it. Or use a red marker and cross it all out. PAID IN FULL. Making this list and thanking Him really does make it easier to forgive others. Colossians 3:23 tells us: “forgive WHATEVER grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” And in Luke 7:47 Jesus said that the person who has been forgiven little, loves little. I’m reminded of a simple childrens’ song from “Bullfrogs and Butterflies,” – it’s a song on patience, but the lesson still applies. ♪ “Remember! that God is patient too, and think of all the times when others had to wait for you.” But what about when I’m the OFFENDER?: What if I’m the one who offended another? There is only one solution: I have to REPENT. Whether it was intentional and malicious, or a Mr. Magoo accident as a result of being self-consumed, I can and must REPENT of any part I played in it, no matter how small. I have to identify my part, try to name the sin involved accurately, and ask the person to forgive me. I have to offer to make things right (it’s called restitution!) I have to be willing for the other person to respond in anger or self-righteous gloating. I have to be willing to be wrongfully accused, as Jesus was, and He didn’t say a word in His own defense. So whatever you do, don’t defend yourself, or make excuses for your part. That always makes things worse! There are few more powerful words in this life than a simple, heartfelt “I’m so sorry I hurt you.” “Please forgive me.” “I care about you.” “What can I do to make it better?” But there are also hopeless cases: Sometimes, I realize that I’m just not Godly enough to be around that person without offending her or being offended, and my mere presence puts us both at risk of sinning or becoming bitter. Sometimes, the Scripture tells us, we just have to FLEE temptation. Not all relationships can be salvaged. Romans 12:18 tells us: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” We are accountable for our part before God – we are responsible for our own obedience – but we are not responsible for the consequences! That is God’s work. We can’t make people forgive us – or like us. Sometimes the wisest and kindest thing to do is to walk away. But whether I overlook, confront, go the distance and work things out, or walk away, I have to do it without sin, do it with kindness and respect and gentle words. Because forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation are commanded by God! And they aren’t really about me and that other person anyway, they’re really about me and God. He is faithful. I can trust Him. You can trust Him. We can leave room for Him to work. Conclusion: So I hope studying the lessons presented by Euodia and Syntyche’s story will give you some glimpse of an eternal perspective on conflict and unity in the Body of Christ. I hope you gain some tools and words to use to resolve conflict in your own life or in the lives of others. I hope God can use it to bring about more unity in His Body, the Church, and in your families and friendships, in your workplace and in your neighborhoods. Whether we find ourselves as a Euodia or a Syntyche, or maybe a Syzygus, I hope that we can do better at our clear calling to be peacemakers. Did you know you are all ordained ministers? Yes, we all have been ordained to carry out the ministry of reconciliation – helping people reconcile to God, and to each other. Again, I speak all this to myself as well as to you, because for many many years I have needed repeated reminders of God’s desire and requirement that we live at peace with each other, and that we walk together in unity – one in purpose and love, and how that must be done. So thank you for reading! May the Lord grant you a life of grace and peace! Please pray with me: Oh Lord, thank You for Your Word. It is hard, Lord, but it’s life-giving! Help us to grow more and more like You and the example You set of laying down Your deserved glory, becoming a humble Servant, and calling us to be One, even as You and Your Father are One. We need Your help. We love You and long to please You. Help us go out this week with renewed desire to be peacemakers. In Your holy and loving name we ask. AMEN.

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A response to the question of “…what it means for adult children to honor their parents. When we’re young, it means obedience. When we get much older, I think it means caring for them as they need help. But what of the decade or two (or three) of mutual independence?” Bronwyn Lea to me

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“Call your mother!” The age-old imperative is so important, but it is only the beginning – and the ending! – of so many ways we can honor our parents. As one who has seen my mother, my father, and two mother-in-laws through those transitional ages from saying goodbye to them as I walked out the door – their grown baby leaving home for the first time – until that gut-wrenching moment when I as that adult child said goodbye to my parent or beloved mother-in-law for the last time, I have had many opportunities to be challenged to understand: What does it mean to honor them when we’re all adults? When we’re no longer their “child” and they are no longer actively parenting us?

And now I have four grown “children” of my own and am a widow. How does that cause me to see this differently? I taught them by my own example what I thought it should look like, and what it shouldn’t! Will they forget my failures and learn from my stumbling attempts?

My own mother was mentally ill, severely paranoid and irrational, but loved God wholeheartedly. Does “honor” look different toward her? My mother-in-law #1 was in terrible pain, and alone, for most of our married life. How did “honor” look toward her? My step-mother-in-law was mostly rejected by my father-in-law for years. Do we reject her too? How does it look when it’s a step-parent? An alienated parent? Is there a normal family anywhere? (Yes.)

But for the rest of us: Does God say “Honor honorable Fathers and Mothers” (No).

On a particularly maddening day, after I had completely lost my last amount of willingness and blew up at my mother over some very irrational decision she had dug in her heels making, I was driving to an O.B. appointment. I had (still have!) a VW bus, and it had a cassette player. In my fury and guilt and mother-loathing and self-loathing moment, I knew music would help tame the Beast in me, so I put in a Phil Keaggy tape. The first song softened my rage a bit, and the holy words and beautiful music began its healing work. A few songs later, just as I was approaching the parking lot, a song came on with these words:

“If love’s a gift, how then can it be earned?”

My heart was pierced through with a grace-coated, cross-shaped Sword. I was trying to make my mother EARN my love – and my respect – and my honor. No. No. I am commanded to GIVE it. As freely as I have been given it, undeserved, unappreciated, in all my failure and pride and crazy decisions, I had received it: Grace, love, gentleness, direction, friendship had been given to me unmerited and freely, and freely I was to give it. Yes, even to her.

I pulled into the parking lot and sobbed and sobbed. I’m sure the receptionist thought I’d just had bad news about my baby. No, I had had good news about my mom.

I’d like to report that I never lost my temper with her again, but I can’t. However I did gain such a new paradigm that change began, and slowly I gained mastery over my responses because I saw her in a new light. My rage slowly turned to pity, compassion, and long-suffering (punctuated by an occasion sense of going crazy myself!) But I learned what it meant to “Honor my mother.”

As time went by, I was able to use that insight toward my husband’s mother and stepmother, who presented different challenges, and I still walk alongside my departed husband’s 89-year-old father, who began failing when he stood by his baby boy’s 60-year-old comatose and hopeless body. At that moment he went from being the cantankerous Sicilian patriarch to a broken man in a body that won’t fail, checking another day off the calendar, waiting to die.

The biggest way I have found to honor them is to “Call your mother!” (or Dad!)

* Call them often – once a week at least when they are young and healthy. Be glad when they call you, and offer to call them back as soon as you can if they call at a bad time. Then do it! But when you can beat them to the phone call, do it! Show you care! Call when you have news, when you have questions they could answer, and teach the kids to call them just to chat.

* Ask them their opinions on things; respect their experience and understanding of the world. They’ve seen and gone through more in their lives than you have, and you may not agree with them, but listen carefully. There’s probably something there for you to learn from or ponder.

* You are no longer required to obey them but you are still required to honor them. So if they are critical of a decision you are making, or insist that you do something you hadn’t planned and don’t want to do, still – listen carefully. Put their counsel in among other counsel, then do what you need to do, but let them know you seriously thought about their counsel, and thank them for it.

* As with our children, so with our parents: there are few phrases more powerful and unanswerable than “I’m sorry.” I’m so sorry you don’t think this is a good idea… I’m sorry you can’t give this plan your blessing… I’m sorry you don’t want to go with us… I’m sorry I can’t take you with me… I’m sorry you feel that way… It is a way to listen, to retain your adult decision-making responsibility, but to express honor and caring.

* Ask them to pray for you, for your needs, without violating confidences or inviting them into your bedroom.

* Give them permission to discipline your children if they are able to do so without damaging them! Or at least give them freedom to mention concerns or observations to you. You think your children are so cute and funny, but just perhaps they are a pain in the neck to some people. It’s good to know. Remember we all have blind spots in our parenting!

* Ask to see their photos of their trips. Take no-doze if you need to, but listen to them and their stories. Who else will?

* Remember that “every old person is a book burning.” Ask them for their stories! We all have stories. Do you know about their earliest memory? Their school days? Their childhood hero? (Mine was Annie Oakley!) Their first car? Their first crush? Their spiritual journey? Their memories of major family and culturally significant events? Their unfulfilled dreams? Their attitudes about difficult world problems? It may be opening a known can of worms, and you can avoid those pot holes, but do you really KNOW them? Ask!

* Take care of them where they need it. Visit them often in their own home and take note of things that need fixing. Take a trip to the hardware store, come back and fix it! Change the light bulbs or install a new washer in the leaky faucet. Leave the bathroom cleaner than you found it. Offer to fold clothes while you chat. Find ways to bless them. They may not need it, but everyone needs to be loved.

* On that note, remember them on the holidays. Help them be a part of yours, or help them host. Help them get out the decorations and put them up together, even before they’re old enough to NEED the help. Make those traditions for your own children, and tuck away the memories of these times into your own heart, because your parents won’t be with you forever.

* If they are at all local, include them when you do a Costco run or take the kids to the zoo or the beach. Everyone will benefit. Make them a part of your life. Then when you exclude them they’re less likely to feel hurt or unloved. Find out what they would like to do, what movie they’d like to see, and invite them out to do it together.

* Offer/try to go with them to difficult appointments. Be part of their support system. (Especially if that parent is alone, or either of them are getting old.)

* When they make a decision you disagree with, don’t criticize. Ask them questions, listen to their logic, their underlying goals and desires. Suggest ways to make it work rather than naysay.

* When it comes to end-of-life care, respect their wishes. If they want to stay in their home and you feel it is unsafe, express your concerns then find as many ways to make it happen as you can. Remember that they might prefer to die sooner with independence and a sense of being honored and loved than to live extra days afraid, treated like an imbecile, and without respect in a convalescent home.

* * * * * * * * *

Bottom line? What does it look like to honor your parents when you and they are all adults?

“Do unto them as you would have your own children do unto you.”

And remember:

Your children will never be what you want them to be. They’ll be what you ARE.

So “Call your mother!”

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When Dale and I were first married we were given a crock pot. I made a meal in it – stew, I think. All I remember was at the end of the day it was still nearly raw and it was AWFUL. We were very poor college students, and to lose a whole dinner was a big deal, so I never used it again, and finally sold it at a garage sale. I knew – Crock pots were SCARY.

I also can’t swim! Yet I love watching others swim, just as I love seeing other ladies sharing crock pot recipes and enjoying their delicious results!

But I DO appreciate crock pots for the same reason I like gardening: they are wonderful, practical pictures of our spiritual life.

You and I – we’re the ingredients. You may be a carrot – a deep, unshakable root. You may be an onion, scary and make people cry, but when people get brave enough to come close, they find you intriguingly deep, layer after layer. Maybe you are a fluffy thing like a cauliflower, or maybe you are a garlic – a little of you goes a long way! But God has chosen each of us; He prepared us, cleaned us, cut off bad spots perhaps, then He put us in this crockpot called DAILY LIFE, plugged into His Power Source, and turned on the heat. Not too high, though it often feels like it. Just below a simmer. Just hot enough to change us slowly to be better and better!

Sometimes God puts us under the broiler, or on the grill, and it’s painful and we come away with scars – those black criss-cross sear-marks – but they are accompanied by a deep beauty and great flavor! Sometimes we long for immediate answers to our prayers, for Instant Spiritual Growth (“Lord, please help me have the gift of patience; I need it right NOW!”) or for Him to bring change in OTHERS. We want God to use the microwave! He can! And sometimes He does!

But for the most part we – you and I – live in a crock pot.

Now, during the day, we lift the lid, look at each other in our half-cooked state and notice harsh flavors, sharp edges, pungent odors perhaps, and we judge each other, sadly unaware of our own undone state. Or we look at ourselves and get discouraged at our lack of wisdom and spiritual victory and growth. “After 13 years as a believer I can’t believe I did that again!”

But God is not finished with us yet! Now, that’s easy to say about ourselves. After all, we like to make excuses for our own failures and sin. It’s harder to say about someone else.

Here in the crock pot, we rub shoulders with each other, smoosh one another a bit, knock off each other’s sharp edges, and as the heat is turned up, our flavors blend, get richer, gain depth and fullness. Hopefully we learn from and benefit from the flavor of our neighbor, our children, our co-workers, our friends, our enemies! In this crock pot we can soften. We can mellow. We can ooze grace juice! We can gain the AROMA OF CHRIST.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 New International Version (NIV)

15 For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. 16 To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.”

Take heart, Dear Ones! God is not finished with us yet!

He is not FINISHED and we are not DONE!

So let’s go on to embrace the heat of the Refiner’s fire, the troubles and troublesome people, the storms and the diagnosis and the spilled milk. Let us love one another and show grace to each other, knowing that God is not finished with them yet, just as He is not finished with ME.

He is not finished, no, but one thing I can guarantee: He is working! In me, in you, in that loved one, in that unloved one.

“Whenever trouble comes your way,” James says, “let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.” James 1:2-4

And at the end of our lives, when our day in the crockpot comes to a grand finale, at the right time, the appointed time, when the timer of our lives rings, God will lift the lid, savor our sweet, fully-cooked aroma and declare us “DONE”. And then say “It is good.” … “It is very good.” (Genesis)

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Early Christmas morning, 1974, I was awakened by my mother running down the hall, shouting, “Kim, Kim, I think Dad’s dead!” As soon as I entered their room, I somehow knew that he was already gone, no longer there, but – you do what you have to do – so I told her to call 9-1-1 and I gave my beloved Dad CPR. He had had a massive coronary sometime in the night. Only two months before, he had submitted his life to the Lord Jesus Christ, after years of angry defiance, and would spend his first Christmas as a Christian face to face with the Jesus he had come to truly love.

But I was Daddy’s girl, and I was devastated and traumatized. My wedding was only seven weeks away, and for the first months of our married life I would secretly but frequently check during the night to see if Dale was still alive. I was sneaky and would cuddle so that my ear was on his chest; hearing that slow, steady rhythm was a balm to my own traumatized and fearful heart. Once I reached over in the middle of the night to check and he suddenly spoke, “I feel you checking my heart!” I knew I couldn’t live with this fear of losing him, so I had to let go, fully acknowledging that he was not mine anyway, he was the Lord’s. I had to trust God for him, to say, “He is Yours, not mine; You have entrusted him to me and I will trust him with You. I want Your will – nothing more and nothing less.”

Repeatedly, the Lord has brought me reminders to let go… to hold loosely to this world, even to the people I’m called – commanded – to care for and to love. He has had to pry my white knuckles again off those people so I could set my heart on pilgrimage. All that I have – my husband, children, health, reputation, friends, my very life – are His, not mine; He is the owner and I am only a steward, and often a very poor one at that. One by one He has put each of our four children in a position where I was totally helpless, forced to relinquish my death-grip on that child and lay him or her at Jesus’ feet. But through every trial He has taught me so much and has sent tokens of His love to encourage me and keep me from despair.

When our firstborn child Sarah saw the doctor at four weeks old she had not gained weight and had developed a heart murmur. The doctors began a series of tests. We were in the middle of moving to Southern California at the time. Dale actually had the car loaded and had said his goodbyes to us to go down to secure an apartment, when he had to come back in to get something he had forgotten. That was the moment the phone rang with the test results. (Why is bad news called “positive results”?) Yes, Sarah had Down Syndrome and a major, weight-inhibiting heart defect. Poor Dale prayed with us, but then had to drive away, leaving us alone. It was the 1970’s, (my hair was to my hips…) we were young and poor, had just finished school, and had no family close. I spent the next few ENDLESS days in our rocking chair, holding Sarah, crying and praying.

Dale secured us a place to live and came back to get us. When we finally arrived down south and went to the home of some of Dale’s childhood friends, we told them about Sarah’s conditions. The wife looked at me, and at Sarah, then asked incredulously, “Have you been sitting in a rocking chair, crying?” When I said yes, she told me that a friend had had a burden for a young mother somewhere with long hair, sitting in a rocking chair, holding a baby and crying and praying. She didn’t know who it was, but she couldn’t forget it, and she’d been praying for “this girl” all week. What tender mercy for the Lord to put me miraculously on the heart of a total stranger, and for me to find out about it! In dark hours to come – even those years later – I would remember this token of God’s love for me.

When Sarah was 2½ she finally reached the safety target weight of 23 pounds and underwent open-heart surgery. Our assistant pastor sat with us for the whole 8 hours. Two things I will always remember: he read to me 2 Corinthians 1, which says that we suffer, and God comforts us, so that we can then go out and comfort others with that same comfort. He also reminded me that God had watched His only son suffer and even die. It was because He loved me so much that He knew exactly what I was going through and how I felt. He was a God of compassion and love. This pastor’s own firstborn, Godly, 19-year-old son was dying of bone cancer. This pastor was living what he taught; he was walking ahead of me on this road of severe mercy and could truly comfort me with the tender comfort God had given him.

In the next few years our youngest got into a childproof bottle of Tylenol and had to undergo traumatic treatment, our only son was thought to have leukemia, and about 15 years later he was thought to have lymphoma, and our middle daughter had to have extensive orthopedic surgery and had a respiratory arrest while I was alone with her in ICU. I was that mom hearing “CODE BLUE; THIRD FLOOR” about her own child. But in God’s great mercy, each of our children was given back to us whole, while I had fresh reminders that they were the Lord’s, not ours. During this time I learned to cling to Godly friends, and to praise Him when doing so was a “sacrifice of praise”. In moments of deepest sorrow I learned to get out a hymnal and (sobbing, off-key and full blast) sing songs of God’s love and faithfulness. This unfailingly gives me hope and peace, and quiets my heart.

Then came six years of great peace, health, and blessing after blessing. I had a keen sense of urgency – that the Lord was giving me this time to be renewed and strengthened, to feed richly on His Word and theology, to become more firmly anchored in my faith and more aware of the devil’s schemes, to hide His Word in my heart as an ant stores up food in the summer for the winter I sensed was ahead… and we all know the winter comes for us all…

But when the next big storm finally came in 2001, I was still crushed under the weight and severity of it. During a time when my mother was being diagnosed with metastasized, aggressive cancer, and came within hours of dying, some leaders of the church we were attending began to verbally and spiritually abuse our middle two kids, slandering us and trying to divide our family, turning all allegiance from parents to the “pastor”. Over the years there had been many isolated incidents that had troubled us, but now we were concerned enough to consult with two national Christian experts on abusive churches about what was happening. We began to realize that although the church was orthodox in its beliefs, it was cultic in practice. Looking at all the troubling bits we had swept under the rug, we were shocked at what we saw. In leaving, our reputations were slandered, our kids lost their jobs, and we lost all our church family and friends, because the church members were ordered to shun us. Ironically, the treatment we’ve received served to validate our concerns. A Godly friend who had left before us put it well, “I cried out ‘Why me?? – Why did the Lord show ME such mercy to deliver me, when so many wonderful people remain behind, locked in?’”

We rejoice that He is restoring the years the locust has eaten, He has put us in a healthy church where we have had words and acts of grace poured out on us, given us compassion for our persecutors, and freed our hearts to see and rejoice in His tender care. He even amazingly gave me my mother back, in good health!

Years ago in a dark time, the Lord helped me see a huge boulder, with a large crack in the side, and when the storms blast around me, I can go deep into this crack and even watch the storm raging outside, but inside is stillness and peace. This Rock is Jesus. He is my mighty fortress. In the Cleft of the Rock there is safety and rest for my soul. I CAN trust Him.